Car collecting trends come and go, what was hot 5 years ago isn't hot today, but what was hot 15 years ago is hot again. We watch the auctions either live or televised and watch the trends roll out in anticipation of the next hot collectible car.

Adults generally go through a phase of collecting what they want. Sometime after they can start to afford the things they want and prior to the point where it’s more important to share what’s important to them with others. In certain undefined terms collectors are 40 to 60 years of age and collecting what was important to them when they were in high school. Today's 50 year old was in high school in 32 years ago roughly in 1981. What was cool in the early 80’s? How about a Buick Grand National or a Porsche 911, maybe a DeLorean, Toyota MR2, Pontiac Fiero or the Grand Daddy of the period a Ferrari F40.

In the early 80’s the collector cars of today were just old beaters you could pick up for a couple grand and they were pretty much disposable cars. Consider the ’68 Camaro Z/28, Pontiac Trans Am and the gas guzzling Chevelle SS 454…. Some of these cars are going for Six figures now and are highly collectible to today’s 50-year old collectors. The smart ones bought these cars when they were cheap gas guzzling cars that many had cast-off as outdated.

Each generation will determine what it deems valuable in the future, but the trend seems consistent, if you looking for a future collectible car, look to when you want it to be collectible and subtract 30-years from that date and buy a well preserved original condition car and do nothing but enjoy it and wait. In theory a car hits its lowest value when it’s 15-years old and will reach its point of collectability when it’s 30-years old.